


Enough Snow Already!

by svelkie



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Certified Winter Activities, Father-Son Relationship, Flirting through pencil spinning, Gay Panic, M/M, Nosebleed, POV Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Panic Attacks, Sledding, Slow Burn, baz is a country boy, bickering and bantering, gratuitous nosebleed at that, niall is bisexual and proud, not to mention, rebel rebel, sort of??, supportive male friendships, we love the library
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:21:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22911664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svelkie/pseuds/svelkie
Summary: It’s wintertime at Watford! And Baz has had it up to here with the snow!A bit of angst, a lot of pining, a lot of friendship, and a healthy dose of regular old magkical boarding school adventure! Many scenes are built from experiences that I have had during my first fall/winter term at college. (I’m enjoying myself, if you couldn’t tell, but in a less angsty way than our friend Basilton.)Major thanks to "rebel rebel" for giving so much life to Dev and Niall. These are now the boys I know and love.
Relationships: Dev/Niall (Simon Snow), Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 7
Kudos: 56





	1. Baz Needs Some Rest and Relaxation

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [rebel rebel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15485421) by [BasicBathsheba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba). 



Winter holiday is a godsend, but it also knocks me on my sorry arse.

I haven’t been drinking. I can’t bring myself to do it, and I haven’t felt like eating much either. I’m hungry most all the time, but on Christmas Day, when I snuck out to the grounds and hunted, and caught a rabbit…

I got ahold of it no problem, and killed it. But when I went to drink… I began to suffocate. The scent of blood was pounding in my head, and I wanted it more than anything, but my stomach was seizing. I nearly blacked out, I couldn’t breathe… I felt terrified. Like I had been hunted. I was scared of myself.

I’m no stranger to self-repulsion, but it had never been like this before. Not so uncontrollable.

Mordelia found me a little later, curled in a puddle, shaking from the cold and the hunger and the fear. She started panicking in my stead, and screamed to get my father. And, much to my fucking chagrin, I could’n’t pull myself together enough to stand up and steady my voice

He wasn’t disgusted, though. He picked me up and carried me inside, and I choked myself trying not to sob.

We didn’t speak.

I pulled myself together for dinner, and nobody gave me any different looks, for which I am endlessly grateful… and I found a tankard of blood in the icebox. I drank it without breathing, and I was alright.. I’m scared now, though. I can’t afford a panic attack every time I’m peaky. It’s embarrassing.

And it’s awful.

I’m happy to be home for holiday, though, because I have no responsibilities except some social acting and staying mostly quiet and pretending along with the rest of my family that I am not a vampire. It’s less than I usually have to do. This new aversion to killing keeps up, and I don’t know what to do, because I need to kill to drink and I need to drink to carry on living. I’m worried I’m going mental. And I miss Niall, and Dev too. I haven’t talked to them much about anything lately, maybe because I can’t stand thinking about my problems myself. I miss my friends.

But I hold my breath and drink from the fridge, and I give my father silent thanks. I need this break; I need this rest, and I cherish the afternoons I can spend sleeping on various surfaces, or reading, or playing violin until my fingers are numb and my mind is blank.

By the time break ends, I’m ready to return to school, although bile rises in my throat when I contemplate hunting again. I hug everyone in my family before I go. The ride to Watford is a mess; the roads are full of slush and visibility is shit, but I get there and go straight to my dormitory in the tower.

When I collapse into bed, though, the covers envelop me in comfort. I can rest now… Snow’s breathing in his bed, I haven’t burned every familial bridge I’ve got yet, and I’m here. I’m home. I feel good.

. . . 

Unfortunately, the feeling is gone in the morning.

I wake up on time and I suppose it’s a beautiful morning, but my nose is freezing. I’m tired. I’m exhausted. Everything is too loud, and I’m absolutely fucking starving.

A window is cracked open, the curtains are flapping around, and cold is permeating the entire room. Why the devil is the window open?

Snow’s bed is empty. He’s fussing around in the bathroom, and even from here I can hear him sloshing the toothpaste around in his mouth. He hacks, scraping up phlegm from his throat and spitting it in the sink. Phlegm cannonball into splashy running water. A god-awful sound.

Snow hacks again.

“Would it kill you to spit at less than fifty decibels?” I snap at him. “And wash out the bloody sink.”

The sink starts running, and he says, probably fuming, “I will! I’m not three.”

I get on his nerves.

“Why the devil is the window open?” I slam it down, making the water bottles on my desk jitter. “Do you know the reason, Snow, that castles have walls and we sleep inside of them? It’s because we don’t want to sleep outside in the snow in the dead of winter and freeze our arses off.”

“Sorry.”

“Bad enough I’m forced to sleep with this much Snow, without inviting in the entire bloody cold front,” I say, jerking my head up and down at him.

This is not my most clever of jabs, but I’m cold. And cranky.

If anyone tells me that I’m being cranky, I think I might bite off their head.

“Put a jumper on,” Snow mutters. “It was stuffy.”

“Stuffy? Stuf—fine,” I say very coldly. I am cold. How could Snow possibly think it’s a grand idea to open the windows for the fresh air when it’s negative twenty out there? I shove my things into my bag and viciously pull on my gloves, and Simon, just watches me with distaste.

I slam the door as I go. “Welcome back!”

I’m in a fuming haze the entire walk to the castle, the snow crunching annoyingly under my boots. Sunlight’s glaring off the white ground. It makes me squint—I’m bound to get a headache—and somehow, despite the clear blue sky, snow is blowing around in the air.

I don’t mind the snow, really, but I forgot my scarf at the room and it’s getting all in my neck. And in my eyes. And down Cold fucking dust.

And — fuck! And it’s smashing into my right ear. I whirl around, snarling.“Fucking watch it!”

“What’s eating you?” says Dev, brushing snow off his mittens. “Nice to see you too!”

Usually I’d scoop up a snowball of my own and pelt him right back, and we’d laugh and curse and chase each other to the dining hall — but I’m furious. I’m practically baring my fangs at him. What is eating me?

I take a deep breath, roll my shoulders and my neck. “Too much fucking snow—” I say, shaking out my hair. “Sorry.” First time I’ve seen my friends in a fortnight and I’m already being a twat.

“Sorry,” I say again.

Dev nails Niall a few minutes later, who yelps and tackles him, and they go rolling around in the white lawn. I laugh, but my neck is all tense. All this noise — I want to crawl out of my skin.

The dining hall is even worse, a complete cacophony of scraping plates and squeaky voices. Niall gets a platter of biscotti and cranberry sauce and drops it on the table. I swirl my tea around in the cup and ignore the biscotti.

Dev’s going on about his winter schedule. “Eastern Medicine from the Medieval to the Modern Era, Next to Normal. Classics 3—we’ve got that together—then Ages of Astronomy … Balinski’s batshit, but he’s experienced and pretty lenient with marks too. Leonard says everyone in his class made A’s. “He holds office hours on Wednesday evenings, though, five to seven, and they’re optional but not really. Dunno how I’m going to get to football…”

“Coach’ll understand s'long as your left shot stays sharp,” says Niall.

“Along with extra credit and exams at bloody midnight in the observatory!” “I’m not even that into astronomy. I wanted this dueling elective.”

“Stars are tight too, mate,” Niall says. "I’ve got Historical Morphology I’m excited for—hear it’s great for coming onto new spells.”

“Right—my great-uncle knows Professor Fae, he wanted me to take it. Maybe I can pretend through you that I am…”

Across the hall, Penelope Bunce is debating with a professor, looking fierce and flustered. I watch her get her way.

“You’ve any good classes, Baz?”

I shrug, because what if I engage and I snap? These are my mates, not my tolerable acquaintances, not my sworn enemies, not my roommate, and absolutely not the subjects of my wrath. Not that I don’t bash them every day for being morons, but that’s different. That’s… endearing.

“You alright there?” asks Dev.

I nod.

“And you’re sure about that?”

"I’m fine. Thanks.” I throw back my whole tea cup to prove it and pour another one.

They go back to dissecting Dev’s class layout and plans for spring term and whether he should get a planner if he wouldn’t use the bloody thing anyway. But I guess I’m swirling a little too much passive aggression into my tea, because Niall keeps looking at me sideways and then exchanging looks with Dev.

So I try to unwind. I say, “I didn’t sleep so well.”

“And so you’re allowed to be a dick, then, Sleeping Beauty?” drawls Dev, looking right at me.

“Lay off,” says Niall, squinting.

“Well, he is being! Baz, honestly! What’s up with you?” He leans back on the bench. “I mean, I’m sorry about the snowball, but—"

“It’s not that,” I cut in, but then I shut up again and cross my arms.

Cross my arms? That’s it. I’m a bloody fucking child. I feel a bit sick, too, out of fear and god will everyone please stop scraping their knives against their pottery—

“You don’t have to make a holy show of it.” says Niall. “Baz, come on. It’s just us.”

He's right. It's not the right time, but these boys deserve at least a display of decency and effort for putting up with such a melodramatic fucking bastard.

“Over holiday," I say, "I suppose I had a few... episodes."

Niall furrows his brow. "Like seizures? Like Dev?" (My cousin's got epilepsy, but it hasn't bothered him for a few years.)

"Not exactly. Like... like.. panic attacks." I'm staring hard at the table. "When I... drink."

Niall's known about my... condition since last spring, and he's been an absolute champ about it. Never once treated me like a monster, like Snow, or like I was sick, like my stepmother. And Dev's known for even longer — probably due to the collective family gossip that no one speaks but everyone knows. And neither of them dropped me then, like I was terrified would happen. But now I'm not only not a good person. I'm not even a good fucking vampire.

"… I’m not sure what it is, actually. That’s the trouble. I just feel so angry. Not with you, not with anyone.” I clear my throat. "I'm... I'm scared. I'm changing—I'm—"

I'm too scared to tell them; I even don't think my voice would let me if I tried.

“Puberty?” says Niall with a smirk.

"In a way," I say, trying to arrange my mouth in a smirk. "I'm sorry—I'm not myself—I'm fine."

Snow is staring at me and my friends, the creep. Although maybe I shouldn’t be spilling the contents of my internal conflicts all over the public breakfast table.

"I just need some things to feel normal," I say. "Talk later?"

Niall nods and gives me this wickedly soft smile and clears our dishes, and Dev claps me on the back. "We're here for you, arsehole."

I feel a mite sick to my stomach, but this time gratitude the thing twisting it in knots.


	2. Baz's Guide to "How to Spin a Pen For Dummies"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Studying together, flirting through pencil spinning, handjob innuendos!

It’s refreshing to have classes to focus on, grades to use as goals and measures of my objective worth. I’m a monster, but I’m a introspective and dedicated monster who can get damn good marks.

Still, I’m not prepared for Snow to ask me for help on his history thesis. We’re both studying in the room, a common occurrence, but generally ignore each other until it’s time to bicker about the lights being on or off, and then he goes—

“Hey, er — Baz?” He rubs his eyes. “Would you mind giving this a look?”

But my work is mostly done, and in spite of myself, I want to talk to him. It’s a calm night. And so I drag my chair to Snow’s desk and sit beside him, poring over pages of his schoolwork. I skim his draft, and I can tell its’s decent but no masterpiece, and I catch myself looking at his hands. His knuckles are tough and his nails are deadly short.

Snow doesn’t get ink on his fingers. He and Niall should give a class on writing daintily. When I take notes, the entire heel of my hand gets printed with thick blue smudges even if the words on the page _Stay put_.

Maybe I only write more down, moving to the next line before the last one can dry — and maybe Snow likes to take notes like he talks. Three words at a time; lots of space in between. And not necessarily focused on the most essential points of discussion.

This is a fifty page document giving a detailed history of charitable magical hospitals in medieval Persia. He’s written “wine thought good for erections” and nothing more. Go figger.

His handwriting is small and clean. Strange that I’ve lived with him for five years and never really looked at it.

I supposed I’d expected it to be broad and clumsy. But Simon’s writing seems to take more after his brain than his body.

“Well,” I begin, “you can’t summarize the diverse sexual and gender roles in two treatments for coitus without taking into consideration the cultural aspect of medicine—it’s not all biology—” He nods, makes a note. We keep skimming through his paper, then he works while I do my own problems. We use his desk, it’s plenty big enough, and I feel uncomfortable. But good?

I think that he’s got some intellectual revelation when he interrupts the silence.

“How do you do that?” he asks, staring at my hand.

“Do what?”

“That… spinny thing,” he says. “With the pen.”

Do you see what I mean about focusing on the least important element of any given situation?

But I humor him. The tension in this room is low, for fucking once in a silver moon, and I extend my hand and my pen towards his.

“It’s rather complicated,” I say. “Takes a nimble touch, a real special knack… not sure your clumsy arse is up to the task…” I say, negging him in spite of myself.

“Hold it lightly, and then—it’s a bit like pulling a trigger—“ I spin the pin.

He drops it. We do this for several minutes. “Hold it in the middle, more… no, don’t use your index finger—"

"Once you figure out the rhythm and the right pressure... Here, not so tight. Grip it gently—" Fuck, I'm blushing through my anemia.

In a few more minutes he can spin his pen too. I’m envious. It took me an entire school year to get it down, a learning curve I will never admit to Snow.

“Not bad,” I say haughtily. “Exceeding expectations—although admittedly, they were on the floor.” Then I stand up, grab my books—all of a sudden I need to be alone. “I’m going to bed.”

I take a long time in the bathroom, brushing my hair around and moisturizing my face twice, until Snow bangs on the door and I shove past and dart out into my bed without looking at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slow slow burn we're working with here friends :)


	3. Little Library Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baz is full of angst, Niall is a good friend, and the library is as good a secret-keeper as any.

That conversation sticks in my head for more than a few days. 

I haven’t followed up that breakfast conversation with my friends yet, but they’re treating me regular, Thank Merlin. Niall is better at compassion than I am. I envy his maturity. 

I’ve been taking food out of the dining hall and eating it like a thief in the corner of corridors, or the loos. A scavenger. I feel like a criminal, a pathetic criminal who’s wasting away because all he can think about is sleep and food and the fucking snow, and because he can’t get enough of the first two and there’s _too damn much_ of the third. 

At least it’s not freezing rain. That would _really_ blow the blue tiger’s bollocks. 

The library is quiet in a soft way, and I am idly grateful for the grandeur of the Watford infrastructure. It gives such a layer of drama and mystique to doing homework on a weekend. 

I ought to learn how to write more delicately, with just the tip of the pen on the page — as of now, my words are smudged and there’s ink all over my hand and — fuck — even a spot on my turtleneck sleeve. 

That’s one more thing Niall does better than I do. He keeps his hands clean. 

I’ve been keeping my outside clean from the well of ink within for too long — this entire winter, maybe even my entire life — and I know I’m getting smudged. My eye bags are practically bruises, even after a good night’s sleep. My skin is sallow and my lips are dry (the cold is hell for bloodless teenagers) and my tongue tastes sour. Constantly. 

Snow keeps scones wrapped in paper back to our room to munch while he studies. Eating make him strong and full, and my jealousy is palpable. I get so bitter that I snap at him for chewing, for breathing, for talking, for being too quiet, for nothing. 

I feel so queasy lately. I can’t bring myself to kill even a rat to drink—but I can’t live without doing it. 

It’s so easy for him. For everyone who can just eat… I’ve only been really drinking since I was fourteen, and in not three years I almost forget what it’s like to chew and swallow and be satisfied. 

And I feel queasy about Snow, too. The light in his hair. The way his tongue steps carefully around his words. The undeniable fact that I feel something for him that’s been cooking for a long time. 

I’ve kept these parts of me secret for so long, I’m afraid I’ll feel empty if I let them drain away. What if I let the ink go, but the stain stays forever? 

I’m scared. But it’s ten in the morning on a snowy Saturday, and there’s no one else in the library, and the light is soft and gentle. A morning caress. Niall’s propping his head up as he reads, palm pushing his cheek up into his eye. He’s got all these freckles, very cute. I only associate with lookers. 

I watch the snow fall outside the red velvet curtains for a minute. 

Then I say, “Hey, Niall?” 

It takes him a minute to come out of The Odyssey. He’s a whore for classics, and I can’t deny that Odysseus of the many stratagems can hero a good story. 

“Yeah, Baz? Alright there?” 

I lean back in my chair, cross my booted ankles on the carpet. “You know I’m well gay, right?” 

I expect it to go fine. I don’t expect him to beam so broadly that his eyes shrink into his freckles and drop The Odyssey to give me a hug. I am reminded how utterly lucky I am to have friends—and how stupid I am for keeping myself from them! 

He lets go of me and perches on the arm of my green leather chair, and we talk in hushed voices. 

“I know, yeah,” says Niall. “You’ve just about said as much — honestly, that’s where I thought ya were going with your whole… blood-eating thing.” 

“Don’t I wish it,” I say. 

“Yeah, would’a been far less dodgy.” Niall leans closer to me, even though we’re alone in the room. The walls can probably hear us. “How’s your family on about it?” 

“Surprisingly unworried. Maybe it would be different if it were just my sisters, but Daphne’s pregnant and looks like I’m having a brother, so the family line won’t be dying out with me.” 

I roll my shoulders and think about my father, lifting me like a stray cat and carrying me in from the snow, giving me warmth and blood and life. Without a word. “We don’t exactly pour our hearts out verbally. But my father and I have an… understanding.” 

Niall nods. “He loves you.” 

It’s hard for me to hear, somehow, but I agree. “I know it.” Even if I’m a monster without a mother... Thank Merlin for my aunt Fiona.) 

We sit leaning against each other for a bit without talking, not really reading either. 

“I’m glad you said so,” says Niall. “I’m a bit gay myself, I reckon.” 

I already know this; I’ve seen Niall kissing boys and girls at most dances, match night parties, and holiday get-togethers since fourth year, and I remind him of this. “Maybe bisexual’s better for you, mate.” 

“Right,” he says, ruffling his hair. “Right.” 

A little while later, he says, “Janey Mac, though, Baz! You alright? Gay, vampire," ( _he whispers_ ) "—you’ve really got it all going on—” 

“It gets worse,” I say lightly as my abdominal cavity flips inside out. “I’ve got a crush on Simon Snow.” 

A vast understatement, but let’s take this one step at a time. 

Niall’s grinning at me incredulously. “Fucken hell, Baz — you’re just pure class.” 

“I could’ve guessed, I think. Snow’s a complete melter,” he adds.

“Don’t I know it,” I say. “Real thick fucking wanker, and my family loathes him. I imagine he loathes me.” We’ve spent the majority of our time together bickering or getting each other into actual bloody danger. He would never believe that most of those occasions were accidents. 

“Maybe I should kill him,” I say. 

“I could do it for ya — just gimme the sign and I’m your ripper dog,” Niall says. “Although—" he wriggles his eyebrows— “I’m not above playing the wingman.” 

We stay in the library as the sun climbs to the middle of the sky. 

Working quietly, just reading and taking notes, like it’s nothing. We know, though. It’s not nothing. 

And when my mind wanders to Snow’s hands, gripping a pen and filling a page with ink late at night at in our room, I let it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you reading as much as I've been enjoying the writing ;)


	4. Friends Who Sled Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sledding fun and introspective fluff.

I sleep well and wake Sunday morning to a fresh coat of snow. It’s past nine and Simon’s not in our room. I suppose a successful day of being an absolute mess has to start early. I take my time getting ready and pull on my warmest sweater, a thick green turtleneck. The walk to breakfast is pleasant; I’m inhaling and exhaling so deeply—a deep cold cleanse, inside out. 

I yam an entire poppy seed bagel, jam and all. And Dev and Niall and I reckon we’ll spend the day sledding. Why, when there is work to be done and spells to practice and papers to compose and copy over? Because the sky is blue and we’re a band of whimsical little bastards. 

We swipe the silver biscuit tray and bundle up all toasty in our dormitories. I yell at Niall when he tries to come into my room with his boots on. “Easy there boyo,” he chirps, I’m dry! Lend me a scarf, will ya?” 

I’ve got an entire collection, and he wraps himself up in 

The snow is a bit sparse and sticky. The tray’s not the most aerodynamic piece of work, either. I spell the bottom of it slippery: “On thin ice!”

Then we fly down the hill. 

“This is deadly!” Niall's shouting, absolutely jubilant, and maybe he's too easily impressed. No — he's right to be so happy. 

I’m happy to be sixteen and alive. Well, I’m here, at least. Alive, I still don’t really know. 

But I’ve got lungs and a heartbeat. I can laugh with my friends and fall on my back in the snow and feel the cold seep into my shoulders and tip my head up at the blue blue sky. I’m not sure what else “alive” could really mean. 

Niall’s hat is woolen and homemade and soaked through with snow. His freckles fade into the rosy blister of his cold cheeks. Dev’s coat is really posh, collar and all, and he always grins and says his gloves are mer-wolf leather. 

After an hour of trudging up, flying down, shoving each other into the snowbanks and crashing into the frozen ditch, I’ve had enough. I’m hungry as hell. 

Dead people don’t get hungry, I imagine. 

“Alright mate, catch you for din!” shouts Niall over his shoulder as he and Dev kick up another spray of bloody snow. They’re trying to ride down together, clinging to each other’s legs to keep on the silver biscuit tray. It’s decidedly too small for them. 

Affection and envy are mingling in my stomach, but they blow me kisses goodbye, and affection dominates. 

They're falling off the sled again. 

I figure they can figure it out. 

I nab an armful of food from the dining hall and wolf it down alone. I spend the rest of the day napping in the window seats, watching the snow fall, watching the sun set. In spite of myself, I practice sliding my fangs up and down in my gums. It would be a godsend to control it... 

But it's hard to concentrate, and I feel a bit too disgusted to keep trying. 

I meet Dev and Niall in their room late that night, and we watch the Rovers match lying on Dev's bed. 

I feel detached, a little bit empty, but I'm not upset. It's been a good day. Incredibly, I think I fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very short little dip into a carefree afternoon and a long quiet day. baz deserves it.


	5. Snow is A True Studying Hindrance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baz is increasingly exhausted. He's hungry, he's cold, and he runs into Snow everywhere he goes, no matter how deep he is in the library.

Football leaves me dead tired. We shovel off the pitch and hold practice on days the temperature hits above negative four degrees Celsi. Sometimes if too many of us are missing or late, Coach has us shovel the snow by hand. Does a number on the deltoids. 

Lucky that today we spelled the snow off (Make way, make way! Clear the floor! A clean slate!). I haven’t drank in two days and I doubt my physical being could handle forty minutes of manual labor followed by an hour of sprinting and shoving and thinking. 

If I didn’t have supernatural stamina I’d be off the team or unconscious. 

Of course, I could eat some fucking toast and pasties and wouldn’t be weak and starving to death if I wasn’t a fucking you-know-what. 

I shower in the lockers. The hot water makes the cold air worse of a shock, and I know it’ll dry my skin out awful, but I’m so tired. I need this moment of complete warmth. 

It’s growing dark as we walk back towards the castle, temperature dropping every moment. Niall wants to drag me to my room for a snack or shower or to watch the Rovers match, but I’m clean already and I don’t feel like eating and I don’t really want to see Snow right now. 

“Come to Dev and mine’s then!” he presses. “Baz, you can’t work now — you’re fuckin’ knackered.” 

“I’m set, Niall, really. Feeling grand.” I stand up straighter to make him believe me. 

He doesn’t. 

But he ruffles my hair and says, “If you’re sure, then.” 

He’s a good sort. I’m lucky to have him around. 

I shove him and shake my hair like a dog. “I don’t deep-condition for the likes of your oily hands!” 

“Clean as a wh-istle!” he chirps, very singsong, flicking me the v’s so I can observe the lack of oil for my own self. 

It’s not a spell, but the grass on the showers floor still twitches. Niall’s good at being domestic. 

After a short cold walk from the pitch up the hill — every muscle whining terribly — he and Dev leave me at the castle doors. 

I drag myself and my books up the checkered tile staircase to the top floor of the library. I like to work at the very end of the tower room, near the biggest fireplace and the toilets. It’s got soft light. It’s warm. 

Sometimes, warm is all I ask for. 

A few people study at the other end, turning pages under the giant portraits of eminent Watford headmasters, professors, and deans. That is, the ones that haven’t been taken down for mysterious “restoration” and disappeared to the Special Collections storage vault—or, even more likely, the shredder. My mother’s portrait among them. The ones that are still tolerable for students’ eyes in the Mage’s Watford. 

History doesn’t suit you? Certain recent historical figures clash inconveniently with your perfect ideological plans? No matter, really! Rewrite it, repaint it, remove it and never speak of or acknowledge it — not even to condemn it. Too risky that someone might… disagree. 

‘Course, it’s not like history is written all perfect and fair the first time around — but here and now, the second time is worse. It’s twisted. Limited. Limited lies. 

That’s why I don’t look at the portraits when I go by. 

I read for an hour in silence. When my mind starts drifting to more interesting, less pleasant places, I turn on my music and get back into it. 

Heavy footsteps on the wooden floor and the side door opens, then swings shut. A thick, echoing bang announces Simon Snow’s entrance. He looks worried, apologetic, as heads snap up to stare at him, then swivel back to their books. 

There aren’t five people in this entire floor of the library; there are green armchairs in three dozen nooks and crannies. Six tables with plenty of empty chairs. Of course that means Snow has to pick a chair at my table. 

Across from me, not directly but to my right. Drops his books and lays out his pens, writes for a minute or so, then pushes his chair back on the carpet and walks out. 

Loo, I guess. His shoulders move just so when he walks. Neck rising out of the hem of his sweater. 

I see Snow every morning and night; I see him in class and at the football pitch and at meals (though I’ve been avoiding those on account of my teeth). Why’m I still surprised? 

Maybe it’s because I was here first, and he’s walking into me. Snow’s stalking me less, this year, I think. I don’t see him hanging in the corner of every room I just happen to be in. He wasn’t watching football practice, and I don’t think he tracked me to the library, either. 

Purely academic motives. To be here, I mean. He does study quite a bit. Despite his obvious deficiencies in attention to school work.

But this context — mostly alone, on a cold dark night, in the very best corner of the grand old Watford library — is too akin to a fantasy porno, quite frankly. 

He returns, raising heads again. Stands there and then grasps the back of his sweater which one hand and pulls it off over his head. Tiniest crescent of skin peeks above his waistband. He’s really got moles fucking everywhere. 

Snow sits, reads, frowns at his paper and underlines things. I stare more fiercely at my text. He can’t keep still — tapping his pencil, tapping his toes, yanking on his hair — and every movement he makes is doubly loud in my ears. 

And the scent of his magic is too tangible — those thick golden tendrils, mingling with the heat from the fire. It satisfies me and makes me hungrier at the same time. 

Sometimes I wonder if that’s all I see in Snow. Does his magic attract me like it does every witch and wizard and every magical creature in five hundred kilos? 

I don’t know. That would be easier to admit, but it feels a lot worse. 

He’s chomping on a piece of gum. Incessantly. That should make my blood boil. It would in anyone else’s mouth, or even Snow’s mouth — especially in Snow’s mouth — at another time. 

Instead, the sound is intoxicating. It’s making my stomach wiggly and a place in my hips get hot and twitchy. 

My entire stupid being enjoys his company, from a distance, as much as I am able. About an hour passes; the eleven ‘o clock bells boom and ring. We sit and read and sometimes, without meaning to, I glance over. He catches me once, so I make a big show of screeching my chair back and stalking out to drain the dragon. 

Snow gets up to go before I do, zipping his notebooks back into his bag, shuffling his sweater and his coat back over his shoulders and. I watch him with my peripherals, sorry he’s going, and I don’t even know why. 

Fuck me. I know why. 

Right before he disappears, he turns back around and looks at me. Nods and smiles, jerks his hand in a tiny, awkward wave. My heart pounds — I feel like a tiny scared animal, pumping with blood — and the door bangs shut again. 

I sink back in my seat and exhale, long and weak and—happy, even. I stay until two in the morning, outwardly productive but mind decidedly elsewhere, until the library voice booms, “Attention, students, the library is closing. It will reopen for study at 7 a.m. tomorrow,” and the candle-lamps flicker off. 

I still don’t know whose voice it is. Does Watford employ a middle-aged Scottish ghost to haunt the ceiling rafters, waiting to verbally boot us off the premises? Maybe the place is enchanted to keep time; in Greenbyrn Library, a disembodied voice announces, “It’s ten ‘o clock” or the like every hour. Perhaps the library is conscious itself and wants to catch a wink strictly at two every night. 

Unsettling, that last thought is. Ick. A speculation worthy of Snow, who grew up (and still grows up) with Normals until he was eleven and probably hasn’t learned the first thing about magic in the half-a-decade since. And who loves to speculate. 

Snow is sound asleep when I creep into our room. I’m quiet and I can see in the dark, and so I never turn the light on or wake him up when I return. 

But I’m numb with tired. When I kick my desk chair and send it crashing against the desk, it takes a long moment to register the sound and cringe and curse. Snow stirs, and I hear him wake up. His breathing catches just so. He sits up. 

I know I’m just a silhouette in the dark, a boy-shaped shadow with glinting eyes—but Snow knows my silhouette. He rolls his neck, then his shoulders, then lays back down. Disappears into his comforter. 

I breathe slowly, move smoothly, set my bag carefully on the floor. Slip off my trousers and jumper and crawl into bed. Smooth, soft… did my sheets the other day. Good and clean.

Bloody fucking tired. Too tired to be hungry. My bones belong in this bed. 

From across the room, he says, “G’night.” 

“Goodnight,” I answer him, through a sudden massive yawn. 

Curl up, mash my face into the pillow. Very muffled. “Goodnight, Simon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been months, but i'm missing the magical academic world...


	6. Baz Blocks an Unfortunate Nosebleed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon's got a nosebleed in his sleep. That's all.

NOSEBLEED 

I wake hours later, jarred up by some inhuman urging. 

Hunger is clawing at my insides, escaping from my abdomen to scratch at my throat. 

I flip on my stomach. Hope the pressure will lessen the hunger. It doesn’t. 

Hot. Wet. Freed from the barrier of skin and vein. I’m woozy with the scent of it. Fogging my vision, clouding my mind. 

Snow’s got a nosebleed. 

Six snakes. Six snakes and a motherfucking dragon! 

Fuck the cold dry air! And the forces that made me too weak to hunt, first mentally, and now physically too weak to hunt—and now even weaker because of it— 

Snow’s fumbling around. He covers his face with his hand, pinching his nose off—ineffectively—and blood leaks visibly around his fingers. Some of it runs into his open mouth. I’m endlessly jealous. 

No. Never. I will never get that blood in my mouth. I will never know what I’m jealous of. 

But he’s not doing enough to stop the flow. 

“Here—” I say, snatching my bath towel from its hook and shoving it at him. It's going to get stained like a motherfucker now and I'll never get out the smell... I'll have to burn it later... or eat it, whichever I'm more desperate for, the fuel or the fire... My thoughts are racing. I hold it at arms length, but I’m close, too close. 

Why did I trust myself to go nearer to him? I can feel his body heat. I can taste the iron in the air. My mouth is full of saliva, and my teeth’ve slid down and they’re filling my mouth up too. 

I should sprint out of the room — go throw up in the hallway or something, I’m fucking suffocating — but some force is holding me here, an arms length away. He takes the towel and says, thickly, “Thang you.” 

He snorts, sniffling blood back into his head. He’s really taking his fucking time here. 

“Plug it up, you idiot!” I hiss between my teeth. I’m sure he can see my fangs. 

But I could never hurt Simon. Not really. 

I open all the windows despite the acrid cold, but Simon’s blood hangs in the air for a day, and in his sheets for longer. I finally snap and yell at him to change them before I can’t stand it another second and toss his entire bed out the window and into the moat for the merwolves to suck on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bloody short one!
> 
> I have several chapters forthcoming in drafts that I'm working around, though


	7. My Father Didn't Raise Any Idiots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baz recalls a Christmas conversation with his father (and other harsh memories) and makes a hard decision.

Niall’s told me that my father loves me more times than my father himself. But Malcolm Grimm has other ways. He’s taught me a lot about magic. And about the power of words sparsely spoken. 

I commend my father for neglecting to treat me like a spoilt brat, nor a fragile angel (although I might be a combination of the two deep inside). He lets me keep a little more dignity than I probably deserve. 

It was Christmas afternoon, hours before I’d need to get spiffy for dinner. (In the back of my mind, I was excited to wear my blood-red satin tailcoat in spite of myself. I felt like such a proper gothic vampire, at home in this ridiculous house for once, still angsty and listless—but in style.) My father left Daphne playing with Mordelia under the glittering fir tree and joined me at a table by the window, slowly scraping back his chair before lowering himself into it. He was already dressed sharp, a starched grey collar and a black coat, dark sterling buttons and a cuff link with the family crest... I’m uncertain, actually, if I’ve seen him wear much else ever. Even to the shore. 

Father was looking at his hands, almost as pale as mine but warmer. Because he’s English. I envy the yellow undertones; even if they are a bit sallow, it’s better than the grey, drained cast I’ve got, though. Sometimes the contrast between my skin and my hair is satisfactorily striking, but other times, I mourn. My mother’s skin was deep, rich, warm, dark, and — with a hint of my father’s eyes and the full sharpness of his hairline — I took after her entirely — really much more of a Pitch than a Grimm. I was only five when I lost her and my life in the same fell swoop, but I remember as much from that time as I do of my school years at Watford. Buried among my childhood memories is the vision of my hands, a deep golden brown, as I popped my toddler knuckles just as my father is doing now. 

His hands are pale and translucent like a true Englishman. I can see the veins quite clearly. That makes me a bit jealous too. My veins sink back into my skin when I go without eating, which is always. I’m strong as a devil but I’m not muscular. My veins don’t flex unless I’ve just drained several gallons. Not matter how easily I can snap a spine, I’ll never be thick and toned like Snow. And I will never be flesh-colored again. 

Dark grey. Like smoke, if I’m feeling poetic. Like slush on the dirty street, most of the time. 

My pallor didn’t come immediately after I was Turned. It came gradually, faded away like the memories of my mother’s voice and my father’s laughter, and I almost didn’t notice until it was gone and I looked dry and grey as charcoal on birch parchment. 

Twelve-year-old Baz moisturized morning, afternoon, and night. I still have jars of those skin potions, my desperate grasping for flushed soft skin, for saving some old piece of the pre-monster boy, the mothered child, but most of them did flat out nothing. It was an obsession. I have a routine now, something more sane. And I still put argon oil in my hair like my mother did for me. 

I appreciate Daphne, I really do, even if she did treat me like a sad cripple at first, because, thanks to her, I’ve made some new memories of my father laughing. It’s not that he was solemn for a solid decade. I humor him. I’ve made him smirk. I’ve even made him cry. But Daphne, and Mordelia too, now that I think about it, bring him a soft joy. It makes the cracks in his face glow. 

Father’s eyes have always been grey, I think, and mine are certainly colorless. I don’t remember if they started out like that, but here we both are. 

“I thought we should prepare for after the holidays,” he said. “Any complications at school shouldn’t require you to be …. malnourished. And you need adequate time for your academics.” 

Daphne told me later that, in a sleepy haze after an earlier panic attack, I had confessed to my father that my diet last year was composed largely of crypt rats. I have no memory of this encounter, which is probably for the best — I can barely look myself in the eyes after losing control like that. 

So, I knew that when Father said “time for your academics” he meant less time skulking around the catacombs and wasting my potential sleeping hours on crying over rat corpses perched atop my mother’s grave.

Maybe he didn’t want me caught, maybe he didn’t want me looking so peaky, or maybe he only wanted a simpler, less gruesome snack system for his eldest child. 

That was it, really, and I knew it then, and I knew it now. Despite the distance and the dry cynicism, the sad disapproval — or maybe it was regret — my father cared deeply for his family. And not for the Grimm-Pitch family name (although that was a sure sticking point too), but for the flesh-and-blood people living under these gargoyle-adorned, tin-shingled roofs. For my sister, for my mother. For me. (Even when I was little flesh and less blood.) 

I felt oddly sentimental, but it was Christmas. 

“Basilton,” he said, looking past me at the snowfall. “I do not know what you’re experiencing, but I will provide anything that soothes this transition.” My father sighed. “I wish we knew more.” 

Vampires are not exactly model citizens in the World of Mages. Pretty sure even my existence is illegal. That means there aren’t many resources to consult about, say, vampire anxiety, or vampire fang growth, or the proper technique of straining ox blood to ensure maximum nutritional content. (Although you can find some decent manuals from dragon-rearing rings on that last one.) Everything I go through is a painful, mostly-unacknowledged surprise. 

I was angrier when I was younger. At my father, at my mother, at my school, at the Mage, at myself. It was easier that way, when I could sneak out, hunt, burn off some adolescent rage tearing through the woods, although I never took much glory in nabbing a doe or a rabbit. The bucks especially looked beautiful at the top of ledge, silhouetted against the sky. 

My father ensured that the Grimm-Pitch grounds were well-stocked with deer, and wordlessly I thanked him by refraining to get blood spots on my best clothes. (I thought abstaining from any mention of my condition was the best thanks I could give him.) Now I’m rather skilled at mess-less sucking, though I still drip on my collar time to time. But something’s changed within me, now. And thinking about it — the killing, the drinking —makes me queasy. 

“And I’m a sorry case study,” I said to him then. 

“You are not an experiment, Basil.” 

We talked a little while, and it felt almost out-of-body. About prior Christmases, and the coming baby, and, briefly, about me. It doesn’t feel as wrong as usual, talking to him. Maybe because I can’t hide how hard it’s been to drink — I physically shake — but how I still think about drinking all the time. If I’m drinking, I’m suffering. If I’m not, I’m thinking about when I can, and desperately wanting it, and dreading it. 

Somehow, it seems less important to be withdrawn when I’m more hungry and scared and alone than I’ve ever felt. Which is quite saying something. I’m not embarrassed, shockingly, although it is embarrassing. But I feel that this panicking, like my condition itself, is not something I can control. And my father says as much. 

“The fault is not yours,” he says. “And we are your family.” 

And maybe I am simply growing up. And I know that I do not want to carry being internally disgusted forever. I’ve got to face it, and it starts here. Talking to Father. 

“If you’re having trouble at school, please write, Basil,” he tells me as he’s getting up to leave. “With anything.” 

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Really.” 

He reminds me to be on my best behavior at extended family dinner out of principle, but he already expects it. I’ll behave like myself — the posh, sharp version of Baz that spits up information about school and classes and plans when I have to. That drinks from a crystal wine glass, not a rat carcass.

Although maybe I shouldn’t drink at Christmas. I get sloshed in one glass now. My blood alcohol content could be eighty percent. I don’t really know how any of this works. 

Later in the holidays, my Aunt Fiona offers me medicinal…. herbs. And despite it running contrary to most of his straight-laced ideals, I think my father asked her. Maybe he’s not straight-laced. Just straight faced, most of the time. He was a hard working working-class man, no matter how well he carries on the ruling-class Victorian sensibilities of my mother’s family. 

I don’t want to become a teahead, I’ve got enough on my plate, but I appreciate the gesture. (And take her up on the offer. I’m not an idiot.) Maybe I’ll ask Niall if he wants to smoke tonight, if Dev isn’t taking up his entire evening. 

It seems so far off, now, Christmas Day and all the emotional stress and soothing, though it’s been scarcely a fortnight. 

I’ve got class in an hour, and I’m hungry. And I think it’s time to write home and ask my blood to send me some blood. Malcolm will figure it out. We’ll keep it in the kitchen, or I’ll go to the village pub and get it on tap. 

But since I can’t suck it up and drain even a squirrel, I’ve got to cut off my pride. Now. I can’t go on empty. 

And I sure as hell can’t kill Snow the next time his dry fucking nose starts bleeding at midnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned for high Baz, potentially.


End file.
